カナリア諸島の火山噴火、猫と一緒に船で避難生活

【タサコルテＡＦＰ＝時事】スペイン領カナリア諸島に住むもうすぐ結婚６０周年を迎える夫婦は、２週間余り続く火山噴火から避難し小さなボートで生活している。（写真はスペイン領カナリア諸島ラパルマ島のタサコルテ港で、クンブレビエハ山の噴火から避難しボートで生活するマルガレータさん＜８０＞と夫のルイスさん＜９０＞）
　自宅から逃げるよう指示された時、マルガレータ・ストラーテスさん（８０）も夫のルイス・ロドリゲス・ディアスさん（９０）も、避難所で暮らす気にはなれなかった。「ボートに乗ったらどうかなと、ふと思いついた」と、元消化器外科医のルイスさんはＡＦＰに語った。
　全長わずか６．４メートルの「ハムラビ」号は、この３５年間でエンジンを１回しか交換していない頑丈な小型船だ。噴火を続けるクンブレビエハ山に背を向けて座る夫婦にとって、広さは十分。小さなデッキにはラジオとマルガレータさんのＷｉ－Ｆｉ付きパソコン、小型冷蔵庫がある。２人はここで、避難の途中に拾った猫と一緒にのんびり一日を過ごす。
　訪ねてきた人がいれば、船室に招き入れる。狭いため、移動には細心の注意が必要だ。マルガレータさんはかがむのをうっかり忘れて、頭をぶつけたことが３回もあると話す。

■間違った安心感
　２人は溶岩によって地図上からほぼ消し去られてしまった村、トドケの住民だ。「警察が来て、『今すぐ急いで避難してください』と言ったので、着の身着のままで家を出てきた」とルイスさん。
　クンブレビエハ山の噴火がこれほど激しく、大きな被害を伴うものになるとは、２人とも予想だにしていなかった。ラパルマ島では５０年前にテネギア山が噴火したが、マルガレータさんによれば「おとなしい火山で、それほど大きな被害はなかった」ため、間違った安心感を持ってしまっていたという。
　それでも２人は陽気で、おしゃべりで、前向きだ。それは、引っ越しを繰り返してきたおかげかもしれない。
　ルイスさんはスペイン北西部の出身、マルガレータさんはオランダ・アムステルダム出身だ。２人が出会ったのは１９５０年代、医学部を卒業したルイスさんが姉にプレゼントされた欧州旅行を楽しんでいる途中だった。
　「アムステルダムの公園に親友といたら、今まで見たこともないほどセクシーな男性に出会った」と、当時１６歳だったマルガレータさんは振り返る。
　２人は連絡先を交換し、しばらくして英領ジブラルタルで結婚した。その頃スペインでは宗教婚しか認められていなかったからだ。夫婦はロンドンに住み、その後、ルイスさんの仕事の都合でアフリカの英植民地ローデシア、現在のジンバブエに移住した。
　ルイスさんはマルガレータさんを連れて１９７７年、スペインに帰国した。ローデシア情勢が不穏になってきたことと、スペインのフランシスコ・フランコ総統が１９７５年に死去して独裁政権が終わりを迎えたことが、決断の理由だったという。【翻訳編集ＡＦＰＢＢＮｅｗｓ】

〔ＡＦＰ＝時事〕（2021/10/13-12:18）

Fleeing their home after the La Palma volcano erupted on September 19, one couple married nearly 60 years decided to seek safe haven aboard their tiny boat until the storm passed.
When the evacuation order came, neither Margaretha Straates, 80, nor her 90-year-old husband Luis Rodriguez Diaz fancied the idea of staying in temporary accommodation.
It suddenly came to me, why don't we try the boat? It's only an old boat, but we could take a few things and settle in, Rodriguez Diaz, a retired gastrointestinal surgeon, told AFP.
Just 6.4 metres (20 feet) long, the Hamurabi is a tough little boat that has only needed one engine change in 35 years, he says.
But it is big enough for him and his Dutch wife who sit with their backs to the volcano, which keeps up its endlessly explosive activity.
Together, they pass the time on the boat's tiny deck with a radio, her computer with Wi-Fi, a small fridge and an adopted cat they picked up while fleeing, and who bolts into the cabin when visitors arrive.
The space is small and requires careful navigation, with Straates often forgetting to duck her head to enter the cabin.
I've banged my head three times, she says.
- False sense of security -
The pair are residents of Todoque, a village almost totally wiped off the map by the lava.
When the order came, they had to leave very quickly.
The Guardia Civil police came and told us: 'You need to evacuate right now, very quickly' so we left in what we were wearing, says Rodriguez Diaz.
They never thought the eruption would be so violent and destructive, lulled into a false sense of security by the eruption of La Palma's Teneguia volcano 50 years ago which was a friendly volcano that didn't do much damage, says Straates.
Over the past 16 days, the erupting volcano has destroyed more than 1,000 properties, many of them homes.
On Sunday, they heard that their house was still standing but that was not enough to ease their distress.
We're in a really bad way, said Straates.
Despite their situation, the pair are lively, chatty and in good spirits, perhaps helped by a lifetime of moving house.
He is from the northwestern tip of Spain, while she hails from Amsterdam.
During the 1950s, Rodriguez Diaz went travelling around Europe on a trip that was paid for by his sister after he passed his medical studies.
I was in a park in Amsterdam with my best friend and we met the sexiest man I'd ever seen, recalls Straates. She was 16 at the time.
- Amsterdam, Gibraltar, Zimbabwe -
They swapped addresses and got married a while later in Gibraltar because, at the time, only religious marriages existed in Spain.
They lived in London for a while then in the British colony of Rhodesia -- later Zimbabwe -- where Rodriguez Diaz held a very senior health role.
In 1977, they decided it was time to move back to Spain given the instability in the British colony, which would gain its independence three years later -- and because the Spanish dictatorship had ended with the death in 1975 of Francisco Franco.
Now that Franco's regime has gone, it's better to go back to Spain as I'm getting older, Rodriguez Diaz told himself, fearing otherwise he would never go back.
After nearly 60 years of marriage, a volcanic eruption and two weeks cramped into a tiny living space has given rise to a few arguments, but nothing they have not been able to handle.
And their faces are well known at Tazacorte's harbour, which has drawn dozens of visitors in recent days for its view of the volcano's mouth, its lava flows and the place where the molten rock enters the sea.
At the port are showers, washing machines and restaurants, and although they can go up to their village, no one can say when they will be allowed to go home.
No one at all, sighs Straates.